Had an interesting chat with a recruitment agency earlier this week regarding their consultants and LinkedIn. Firstly hats off to them for pushing the use of LinkedIn as hard as they are, it’s a recruiters gold mine if you engage and use all aspects of the site/network, we receive a lead on average once a [...]
Over the weekend I finally went and saw Inception. Unless you have been living under a rock you know this movie has something to do with dreams, and stealing them. On the surface that is initially what it is about, however as the movie progresses the key plot is planting an idea in someone’s dream/subconscious [...]
The Future of Mobile Recruitment report is the result of a roundtable co-hosted by Jobsite and Allthetopbananas.com in London in May 2010 with some of the leading brands involved in mobile, including Google and Microsoft. You can download the report below, here though are some key findings: More people now access social networking sites via [...]
About eleven years ago Job Boards burst on to the scene to end the demise of print advertising. Whilst that has not entirely occurred, it certainly has made a massive dent in to the once prominent employment sections of the Saturday paper. But what of eleven years from now? Social Media, or Social Recruiting as [...]
Well it’s been less then 24 hours since my blog went out to the wider public and in that time I have already learnt something. They say that if you have a $Million idea, chances are someone else has had that same idea and has already beaten you to it. How many times have you had the light-bulb moment, done your research (Ok I didn’t research this one but I did think it was a no brainer) to only find out that you’ve been beaten to the punch.
Well I’m happy to say, that my (well not mine as someone beat me to it) idea of having job postings automatically upon posting, feed into twitter with specific silo’s for location and job type has already started. Tweetjobs.net have cornered a niche of the market that takes an uploaded XML file and formats it into a Tweet. It takes key pieces of information from the file such as, job title, key skills, location, salary and a url link to the job on the clients web site and auto formats it before sending it out. This is all done in a fraction of a second. What can be better then that.
Well there’s more. They also manage client branded Twitter accounts for both end clients and agencies.
Richard Sutciffe and James Mayes are the brains behind the operation and with years of recruitment and IT experience behind them, there is no doubt that this business will be a success. Further proof of this is Broadbean’s decision to trial the service. Whilst it’s early days, signs are good and they will contemplate a full roll out next year, all going well.
So maybe the job boards don’t have to worry about social media and implementing new initiatives to deliver a better performance, the likes of Broadbean could beat them to it. All I know is I have to hope for another light-bulb moment.
Firstly I have to apologise. I would like to apologise to all of my previous clients over the past 8 years that I have given advice to, on how to write an online job ad. I would also like to apologise on behalf of all of the job boards that are spewing out the same information day in day out on how to write the perfect job ad to attract candidates. Over those 8 years I towed the company line and gave the advice which for all intensive purposes is sound. The Internet allowed us to write as much as we want and we put a framework around it.
Whilst I never led any of my clients astray, or told them something that wasn’t beneficial, that framework is now broken. Today’s internet job ads are clones of each other and if they are not, then there is nothing in the ad itself that tells you anything about what the job actually is (yes I can see you nodding your heads candidates)
Today, this is how it roughly goes.
1. Job Title – Write something that is the ACTUAL job title or something that is along the lines of the job title but catchy.
2. Short Description – Think 140-160 characters depending on the job board, those who use Twitter should be getting the best out of this now. While I’m on it why don’t job boards tweet all short descriptions into relevant silo’s. Who is going to be first to jump on that, or has someone already, if so, speak up, we want to hear the results.
3. Job Ad……………………
This is where my frustration begins. Ok, so I was trained as a recruiter a couple of moons ago, that a good job ad consisted of 4-5 paragraphs. 1. Introduction of the company. 2. Explanation of the job title and who you will report to, team structure etc. 3. Overview of job role and purpose. 4. Qualifications and maybe just maybe salary. 5. Please Please Please Apply now.
The problem is, it is so structured, and so drummed into the minds of advertisers that seek professional help from the job boards, that all creativity has gone out the window. Where has the every day language and realism gone, it seems now that job ads are just rehashed over and over again, and not just from recruiters, who are constantly doing it, but corporate’s as well.
And it’s not just me, Thomas Shaw from Recruitment Directory has noticed as well and highlighted these 2 great ads on http://shar.es/aaPMp. Great ingenuity.
So who is to blame? Do we blame the job boards, who over the last 10 years have not redefined and re-developed more functionality for job postings other then some fancy imagery (god knows video would add a wonderful dimension to each job, a 1 1/2 min advertisement from HR or the hiring manager showing you not only is this job real but we have a personality, flair and culture);
Or do we blame ourselves, for sticking to this format so rigidly, that we have now no other way of writing an ad. Print was restrictive due to cost and space. The Internet has far more capabilities to advertise, why has it not developed?
I hear every day that recruiters and corporates are swamped with applications. Most of the time the candidate doesn’t even know what it is that they are applying for, the ad is written that vaguely. We can’t blame them, every job ad sounds and looks the same, why not apply to them all?
Having recently launched our new social/community platform, Tribepad, I was excited to spread the word of the benefits of a white labeled in house community zone that allowed employees to engage with each other and collaborate on projects, news and views or what ever tickled their fancy. With social media being the craze at the moment, I figured this conversation would be one that almost every large corporation at least utilizing social media would be interested in having.
Well I was a little surprised last week to get feedback from one prospect that they are happy with their current social media strategy of using Facebook and Twitter and didn’t wish to do anything further at this stage. This didn’t shock me entirely as I was expecting a 100% strike rate and knew that the product wasn’t going to be for everyone right now. What did shock me though was that the company that provided these retort was thinking from one angle, that of attraction of candidates, and not the most important aspect from a business perspective/asset, their own employees.
There is no doubting the power that Twitter and the like, have of attracting and reaching a broad audience but that is exactly where usefulness ends. 140 characters will not be a meaningful conversation or provide you with the traction that you are seeking. Twitter and Facebook are great for “seeking” out an audience and having them directed to your site, but what then? Is your site compatible with these social media, engagement, information hungry candidates, who want nothing more then to speak to someone directly about what it is they want and then move on.
What though, I felt was the bigger issue, is that of this companies own backyard. Their employees. Whilst HR and recruitment teams are making every effort to not only understand and use social media sites to attract candidates, their most important asset is being forgotten about. If I was an employee in a company pushing forward with social media strategies I would be wondering what is so important about all of these people who don’t even work here yet, what about me?
Whilst retention rates right now are relatively flat (redundancy aside and who is game to leave their job with the market still how it is) engaging your employees and allowing them to be more involved within the business is crucial. Any company with a large employee base that is separated by time, distance or many other factors can interact efficiently and easily via an in-house community platform.
Knowledge is power, and if there are other people within a business that can assist me with what it is I am doing, without the need of leaving my desk, then fantastic. Knowledge sharing, learning, engaging and collaboration all from your desk. An employee who also feel that they contribute to a positive outcome is also more likely to feel inspired and seek more of this type of input. I just read about a company who utilizes a similar platform launching a new product and needed a tag line. Instead of employing an ad agency, they requested the input of their 12,000 strong global workforce. Result, an enormous amount of responses, and a new tag line, free of charge. People power, and the want to be involved proved are such powerful things.
So when thinking about your next social media strategy for recruitment, take a second and think internally first. Not of yourself, but of your own company. After all, having lots of people coming through the front door, doesn’t mean just as many won’t leave through the back.
